


nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day

by velleitees



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Getting Back Together, M/M, Pining, Sleepy Cuddles, practically non-existent soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 03:07:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16054178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velleitees/pseuds/velleitees
Summary: sleep doesn’t come easy.alt;maybe i'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new now that i've thought it through





	nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day

**Author's Note:**

> written for the @phandomficfests bingo square 'sleeping on the same bed'.
> 
> thank you, [kay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_okay/pseuds/kay_okay), for being so very lovely. <3

Three on his left elbow. Two near his shoulder. Four dusted across the bridge of his nose. Dan stares from across the room, entranced, memorising the constellation of freckles on Phil’s body. It’s a hot day in Hong Kong, humid, even. Sleeves usually hide them, but the weather is dismal, and it’s pointless to cover up for very long, freckles like the stars that come out of hiding. His eyes follow Phil while he speaks to the hotel staff, connecting the dots on his shoulder, his arm, his neck.

“You’re staring,” Martyn comments, nudging him. The look on his face is meaningful. Dan just scoffs, the sofa whining as he gets up, too tired to form an excuse. _You have a crush on him_ , Martyn had said years ago, three years after Phil kissed him for the last time, a time in which nobody knew. “I know it’s surprising but it’ll take a lot not to notice.” He had denied it hotly then, because it was easier that way, because it was safer.

As if Phil heard the subject matter, he glances up and their eyes meet for too many seconds too long. They’re blue and green and yellow, the kind that make people _fall_. Dan clears his throat, feeling heat flourish on his cheeks. “I’m going to the kitchen.” He leaves with a huff. The glass of water sweats in Dan’s palm as he leans against the counter, distracted, breathing easier outside of his proximity.

“I was looking for you.” Phil stands in the threshold of the small kitchen, relieved, maybe.

“Where else would I be?” the words come out harsher than he intends, Phil raises his brows. Dan adds, slightly embarrassed, voice softer: “You could’ve texted me.”

Phil walks in, entirely, and the way his overwhelming smell fills every corner of the room makes Dan’s head spin, the glass in his hand clinking gently on the counter. Nine years — nine, it’s pathetic, really, he knows, but perhaps that’s what crushes simply are. Dormant, nobody ever stepping forward, nobody stepping back, feelings hidden under the protection of the cage inside his chest. Nine years, six years — Phil is still beautiful, Dan’s heart is still a faulty, faulty thing.

“You said that you wanted to go try out that restaurant in Kowloon.”

“Oh.” Dan grins sheepishly and Phil rolls his eyes before bringing the glass of water from the counter to take a sip. When he hands it back, Dan is careful to avoid the rim where a mark has formed for some reason. “Do you want to go now, or—?”

“We can go now.”

“Martyn and Corn—”

“They’re going on a date,” Phil shrugs, voice disembodied as he turns to step out of the kitchen. “I guess we'll have our own, then.”

Dan lingers by the island. _Date_. Trivial, insignificant, it is a word that means less to them than most others, and yet the gravity it holds is dragging. Phil says it so casually, so heartlessly. Now Dan’s fifteen again, bothered in too many ways by its semantics. The glass of water is finished and washed, and they go out.

 

 

 

Ninety-two metres above sea level, Hong Kong is an amalgamation of concrete and neon.

They’ve been here before, yes, but being at the tail end of their second tour feels like a different experience. More performing nights loom ahead, they are both aware, though the people that crowd around them in the cramped alleyways and the dissonance of angled vowels ring alien to his ears is enough for Dan to feel anonymous, the city so small and the skyscrapers so tall. It feels good. Comfortable, almost. They walk side by side, the flickering raspberry lights like fireflies leading the way into the restaurant.

Slow sixties music plays in the background while they scan through the menu, and it adds to the onomatopoeia of striking cutlery, scraping chairs, and Phil humming across from him in the background. _Good_ , that’s how Phil looks. Dan doesn’t miss this. He’s wearing dark colours — black jeans, collared shirt, top button undone. He finds himself wanting to lean over to fix the piece of hair fallen in the wrong place. Dan doesn’t, though, flustered by the thought, instead shifting to find new focus on the menu in his hand. He fails, miserably, of course. “Your hair, you idiot—,” he starts, and Phil’s eyes snap up, mock-affronted. A strand is smoothed into the wrong place as Phil tries vainly to put it back into place. “No _,_ Jesus—” An amused huff, and without thinking Dan’s stretching across the table, reaching forward to pat it down into place, too conscious of how close he is. “ _There_.”

“Do I look good now?” A corner of Phil’s mouth lifts, and Dan barely musters a snort, or a dry _sure_ , rattled by how his heart beats painfully out of pace, how unaffected Phil appears to be.

“Yeah,” he stares back down to the menu, not reading the words. “Now what the fuck are we getting?”

It always happens like this, the things he wants to say getting stuck in the back of his throat.

The food is ordered, and Dan passes the plates around, the air between them an easy silence as they eat. Pale fingers around a fork offer him pasta, and in turn a piece of steak is cut and placed on the other’s plate. “Do you want wine?” Phil asks, as he’s cutting a piece of carrot, glasses low on the bridge of his nose.

“Red or white?”              

Alcohol is never a good idea, because Phil gets a little sleepy, and he leans into his space, a bit touchy, and Dan falls in a little deeper because he, too, gets a little clingy. But — like always, Dan can’t deny him. Can’t reason the monosyllabic _no_ he often wants to say, even though Phil can read him better than he can read himself. “Red is good with steak,” Phil hums.

So they order it, and crimson stains the insides of Phil’s mouth even after the meal is done and they’re sat in the back of a taxi, and Dan finds himself staring more than he usually does, but maybe that’s just the alcohol. Dan exhales, looking sideways briefly. Phil has rings under his shut eyes, the colour like bruises, face contoured hollowly by the fluorescent signs they drive past.

“Tired?” Dan asks.

“I guess."

“We’re nearly there.”

“— I know.”

 

 

 

Sleep doesn’t come easy. It’s dark, so dark, the room quiet around him, the sort of silence that feels eerie. As well as being dark, it is cold, too. Dan slides out from under his duvet, navigating through the heavy night and out into the living area. _Occupied_ living area. Phil is haloed by the soft light he’s sat beside, book in his hands and all juxtaposing hues. He shuffles out, unsure, then quickly goes back into his room to grab a shirt.

Phil startles when Dan stands in front of him.

“You’re awake.”

The statement, almost like a question, is posed softly, voice quiet as the nighttime cloaking the city.

“So are you,” Dan snorts, the sofa dipping with his weight. It’s probably too late in the night right now. Through the window, Hong Kong is restless, and it hums.

Phil just shrugs. He throws the blanket over Dan’s lap until they’re both underneath it, and the warmth feels allaying under the aircon vent, book forgotten in the gap between them. “Couldn’t sleep,” he mutters, and maybe it’s true from the way his words are laced with weariness, the eyes that look at him red-rimmed.

Dan nudges his shoulder. “Me too.”

“I guess we have more than one thing in common, then,” Phil chuckles.

They sit there in comfortable silence, and at some point Phil tugs him close, hands finding his shirt, and Dan’s exhale comes out all stuttery. He’s warm, and he smells good, and maybe, probably, Dan breathes it in, deeply, until his lungs are filled with that rosy oxygen. _Cuddling_. That might be the appropriate verb to use for the arms loose around his frame and the legs tangled with his. It isn’t though, because in the present — as most present participles often go, are full of mistakes and falsities, and certain exceptions left untouched. Dan feels himself flush. “Remember back in Manchester when you couldn’t sleep, and you’d insist on playing Guild Wars until you did?” Phil says softly, suddenly.

“Yeah.” An inhale, Phil shifts away a bit, and Dan doesn’t have the right to ask him to stay. “I’d still do it again, though. No regrets.”

“Oh, yeah?” A small pause. “— _No regrets_?”

“Not with anything, not really,” Dan replies, shrugging. _Just with us_. Phil raises his head and a grin adorns his face. It’s a trivial conversation, a sleepy one, neither of them thinking much about what they’re saying, or doing. Perhaps that’s why Dan willingly curls his fingers on the hem of Phil’s shirt and _pulls,_ until all the warmth is on his body, again. It lacks a complaint.

“You ready to sleep?” The aircon has turned off, and Phil’s voice is gravelly, almost, low against his ear. “It’s more comfortable sleeping in your room than out here, you know?”

“Of course I do.”

No response follows, so Dan allows his eyes to flutter shut, not bothered enough to move, too consumed with the heat and the scent that fills his nostrils. Dan curls himself under the blanket. There are hands pressed firm on his back to stop him from falling off the couch, still. “Goodnight, Daniel.” It’s said in the warmest, lowest diction — and, like a switch, he falls deep into slumber.

 

 

 

(The moment he gets up is the moment he realizes that there is a duvet pulled over his body. The second moment is he’s alone. No dip has been left on the couch, no wrinkled fabric, no memory of Phil apart from the scent that permeates the space beside him, the night so hazy it felt like a dream. He doesn’t mind it, he tells himself, but he does, he does, he does. The kitchen is empty when Dan gets there, and a mug of coffee has gone cold. As he lifts it up a note stuck on the bottom flutters to the ground. _Gone to get some egg tarts with Martyn and Corn_. Messy handwriting, scrawled in black ink, smiley face at the end. Best friend feels like a shackle.)

 

 

 

The show is performed the following night, and they’re on a high. Sweat dampens the white shirt he wears and tugs it off, stepping into the shower, blood rushing warm through his body. It’s two a.m. by the time Dan gets out, hair dripping wet. The humming in his skin has mostly settled, and in turn all that is left is tiredness, the hollows of his bones suddenly too heavy to bear. “You’re still up.” Phil kneels by the switch in the darkened hallway. “I can’t get this to work properly. Help me out and I’ll repay you with egg tarts.”

“You could always turn the light on if you can’t see.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that.” Dan scoffs, kneeling beside him anyway, awfully aware of the warmth of Phil’s arms.

It’s a faulty plug, they later conclude, and Dan’s hair has already dried into a curly mess by the time they stand in the kitchen. Three pastries, two glasses of water, and an island separate them. Under the dim lights his eyes are void, clear, skin colourless. Crumbs have fallen unceremoniously down Phil’s shirt, and Dan raises a hand to brush them away, fingers fluttering nervously, disconcerted by the way his body operates beneath his fingertips. “You’re a fucking mess, Phil,” he tries for a sigh, consonants breathy, too many feelings in between them. Phil casts a look toward him. He dusts a few flakes of pastry off Dan’s chin.

“So are you, Daniel,” he replies, and Dan glares at him.

“It’s all over your shirt too, you know. Now we actually need to do the laundry.” Phil chuckles as he carries on flicking off pieces of pastry on Dan’s shirt, teeth now on show, and Dan huffs, trying to ignore how his heart stutters, or how Phil’s fingers seemingly linger.

“— And so is yours, is what I’m saying also.”

So Dan stays still, until the rest of the pastries get eaten and his skin no longer burns. It must be insomnia, he thinks later, looking through a multitude of tabbed articles. They sit close, knees touching. He fails to concentrate on the words on the page, eyes straining, shutting the mocking _WebMD_ page along with his laptop with a soft click. Phil is staring at him from his peripheral. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, again, his voice low. Dan shrugs.

And there’s only silence then. He sighs, tired in a way that keeps him up at night. Phil doesn’t hesitate before moving closer, never second-guessing what kind of feelings his touch brings again, palm brought flat against his forehead. The way he breathes out can be felt from here, and Dan flinches, pulling back, proximity daunting. He almost stammers when he speaks. “I’m not sick.”

“Yeah, and that’s what you usually say when you are,” Phil reaches out again, entirely nonchalant. Dan wants to get away from him, but he doesn’t.

“Phil,” he eventually manages to grit, “I’ve got a headache and you’re not helping.”

Phil drops his hand. “Oh.”

It’s half a lie, anyway. Dan shifts on his weight until they no longer touch, and it gets cold immediately. He shivers without the blanket. There’s an exasperate sigh, and then there are arms that tug him under the fabric, the laptop crashing on the ground, and Dan yelps into Phil’s shoulder, the noise echoing throughout the suite.  

The room goes quiet, quiet as a grave. The aircon whirrs softly. A few ticks of a clock go by.

“You’re going to catch this disease if you don’t bloody let go,” Dan eventually mumbles, hiding further in the throw as soon as he gets under there, and Phil huffs, not letting go of Dan’s elbows, glasses askew on his face, looking somewhat tired and dishevelled. “For fuck’s sake — I’m warning you, Phil.”

“Then don’t fall ill,” Phil rasps, syllables slurring together, and Dan knows he’s about to fall asleep from the way his breathing evens out, but he can’t find it in himself to ask Phil to move, too infatuated with how his face goes placid, the lines smoothing out.

He swallows, unsure. “Phil—”

Bodies close, it’s warm, so warm. Purple light drips along the skyline into a watercolour painting of glassy high-rises and overcast skies. _Heavy_ , it’s his last thought before sleep conquers him, and the man, his breath, flutters like a ghost against his cheek, warm and torturous. Dan doesn’t mind it enough, unfortunately.

 

 

 

The last day of Hong Kong means that they step out into the sticky heat. They walk around, aimlessly. Around them, the city is bustling, and there’s monochrome everywhere with the occasional colour as they make their way through the island. “You’ve got something on the corner of your mouth,” Phil points out, warm, clammy air slicing through the air as the train comes to a stop. People enter, and Dan is shoved against the plastic divider. He wipes his mouth helplessly, cautious of the amount of space his elbows seem to take up.

“Is it gone now?”

“Yeah,” Phil nods, stiffly, eyes darting away from his mouth. Cornelia gives him a small look. “It’s gone now.”

“Okay.”

“— _Okay_.”

“What?” Dan asks, warily.

He just shrugs. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, right. Nothing.”

Dan bites his lip, barely making it out when their stop comes up. They walk together on the platform, and Dan feels oddly embarrassed and unlike himself, or too much like himself all at once. Twenty-one, Dan remembers. Twenty-one times it’s been since Phil has stared too long, touched too long, never saying anything, and twenty-one times since he’s fallen over himself with his heart dripping its mess down his chest. He remembers the foul taste all twenty-one times have left. But, like a masochist — too obsessed with the way everything aches, he collides to the ground always, always harder.

Stripes of strobe colour Phil’s hair into flashes of white, as white as the skin on his arms, and Dan tries not to stare as he follows closely, stretching out his fingers just enough to touch the hem of his shirt and not lose him in the crowd. At some point they part with Martyn and Cornelia, and they sit on a bench not far from their hotel, passing a bottle of cheap beer back and forth.

“It’s nice out here,” Phil sighs, tipping his head back against the bench to look skyward.

He glances sideways — for a small while, then forward at the busy road.

“Yeah.”

Dan knows how he sounds, Phil doesn’t seem to understand.

His thoughts scatter when Phil leans in, arm pressed to his. The cars shuddering by with their bands of yellow make him hasty, jumpy, even, but maybe that’s not the reason at all. “— We should go,” Dan mumbles, coughing through the words, already standing. The empty bottle of beer is swiftly thrown in the trash. Phil’s face turns orange as the streetlamp flickers on. Alcohol taints his actions in the slightest, its sweetness lingering between the layers of bitterness, almost nauseatingly so. “We should — we need to catch a plane tomorrow.”

An eyebrow is raised. “Our flight is at five in the evening.”

“Yeah,” Dan feels his face flush (alcohol probably, most likely, nothing else). He clears his throat, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s an early night for me, I guess. You can stay out a bit longer if you want.”

To his surprise, Phil says _okay_ and Dan stills for a moment, bothered, swallowing any other thing he wants to say, feeling foolish to have thought that Phil would ask him to stay, or offered to go with him. Dead leaves crunch under his feet as he turns to leave, and he knows Phil is watching him as he goes, heat of his eyes burning his neck.

Dan wills himself not to look back.  

 

 

 

[Phil Lester] [23:54] hey

[Phil Lester] [23:54] hey

[Phil Lester] [23:54] hey

[Phil Lester] [23:55] do you want to watch a movie together?

[Dan Howell] [23:57] what movie

[Dan Howell] [23:57] it’s late

[Dan Howell] [23:58] we have a flight to catch tomorrow

[Dan Howell] [23:58] like i know we stay up till 3 but still

[Phil Lester] [00:00] come to me

[Phil Lester] [00:01] Dan

The screen of his phone gleams in the darkness of his room, grey messages lighting up his face. He sighs, staring at the words. _Come to me_. Dan’s addicted to this. His nails dig into the soft skin of his hand, restlessly, teeth worrying his bottom lip.

[Dan Howell] [00:04] fine

With a sigh, he slides out from under the covers, footsteps light on the carpet. A door is left ajar seven steps down the corridor, yellow light avoiding the otherwise blue nighttime.

 

 

 

The flight to India goes for far too long. It’s six hours long, yes, but for some reason their seats were downgraded to economy, and his limbs are too long so they fold in, and Phil is next to him, smelling of the nice things he always smells of, and Dan fails to concentrate at all. Phil doesn’t seem to notice when he orders a second glass of orange juice, then a third, leaning all over in his space, a kind, yet awkward smile on his face when the blushing flight attendant sneaks an extra packet of peanuts on Phil’s tray.

Humidity curls around his body uncomfortably as soon as they go out into the Mumbai heat, but then they’re ushered into a minivan and into the air-conditioned vehicle in less than three minutes. Today feels heavy. Heavy in a way that’s indescribable. Just tired, maybe, slow, probably, but that’s not the appropriate word for the feeling in his chest.

And Phil seems to notice.

So he keeps his voice low, carries Dan’s luggage into his room, orders him a mug of black tea even though he’s tired, too. _You can nap for a few hours, I’ll wake you when you need to._ And Dan nods, hums half-heartedly. Hot tea burns his tongue. The door closes with a dull _thump_ as he sits on the edge of the bed in his own room, looking out of the window to see the high-rises and all their mockery.

Today seems heavy, so Dan allows himself to nap in his clothes, everything blank and devoid and unfeeling, falling asleep to the orange glare of the reddit logo.

White sheets curl messily around Dan’s legs when he wakes to soft but incessant knocking. His phone stirs and stirs. He doesn’t answer it. Instead Dan curses and drags himself out of bed reluctantly, hissing when his toe connects with the edge of the luggage on the way to the door, stumbling a bit.

“I cancelled all our plans tonight.”

“You — _what_?”

"Responsible, I know."

His breathing stammers, heart following recklessly, tripping over the well-structured syntax in his lungs he usually has under control. Phil, even under the dim lights, has eyes that ever stay blue and bright and beautiful.

"You're an idiot."

He doesn’t do anything to stop Phil from walking in, maybe because he doesn’t mind, maybe not. “And I’m the other idiot keeping you company,” Phil says, looking over his shoulder, eyes searching Dan’s face for an objection. Knowing Phil, he’d leave if Dan asked him to go, but he can’t bring himself to protest when it’s pointless, really. The door shuts behind him. Phil stops, abruptly, halfway down the small corridor to look at him, somewhat unsure. “I can go if you want me to, Dan.”

“You can stay,” Dan yawns, trying to feign nonchalance, just narrowly avoiding the luggage as he turns back toward the mattress. He pushes it aside with a socked foot before sliding back under his duvet, thankful for the weak warmth his body left. Also, maybe, most definitely, Dan pointedly ignores how Phil stands at the end of the bed, how he stares, how concern settles in the lines of his face. Phil needs reassurance Dan can’t give right now, because right now he doesn’t even know how he feels. “Come here, Philly,” Dan offers a space beside him, and Phil looks on, the slightest bit amused, “you said you wanted to keep me company.”

The last sentence comes out wrong, its combination unlike how he wants it to mean. _I want you to keep me company_. But Dan won’t say it as it crosses blurry lines he has so carefully drawn — lines rooting from 2012, when Dan didn’t want to try anymore, and Phil was too exhausted to fight it. _I’m tired_ , Phil had said, and it came out weary, over a Tuesday afternoon Mario Kart game. And six years forward, Phil approaches the right side of the bed, every noise hyperbolic. He seems to falter. “Hey, best friend.”

“Hey,” Dan says back, quickly putting inches in between them. “We should get some rest.” This close, he can’t bear it.

“I’m not that tired,” Phil closes the distance, then, whether knowingly or unknowingly, Dan isn’t sure, and it confuses him, and it _hurts_. The covers rustle when he curls his legs under them. The silence is thick, the sort of silence filled with words neither of them want to say, and Phil exhales, staring at him, and Dan stares back. “Yeah,” Dan sees him swallow, “yeah we should.”

“Goodnight, Lester.”

“— Night, Danny.”

Dan flicks off the switch on the lamp, and it goes dark again in an instant, but he sweats, nervous, catastrophically aware of Phil beside him. Just there, just touching him in the slightest, just shifting until his pupils are barely a glimmer in midnight blues. It always makes him fall, it always makes him want to kiss him.

There’s not much of a pause before Phil reaches up, tenderly almost, to push back a curl fallen over his eyes. Dan sucks in a breath. If Phil noticed, he doesn’t say so.

“Can we just — can I— _fuck_ ,” Phil coughs into the silence after several seconds, entirely flustered. “Can I hold you?”

Dan’s eyes widen. All he does is nod, not trusting himself to speak, a weak hum escaping through his lips. It’s all very hesitant and very slow. Dan doesn’t move, frozen in place while Phil moves to wrap his arms around his waist, holding him there, but he’s close enough to kiss Phil’s jawline, and Phil seems to know that. The longing feels almost painful as he drinks in the sight of Phil, trying desperately to engrave every plane and dip of his face. They probably shouldn’t be doing this at all — but he can’t stop, lights low, full of hazy shades Dan prefers not to think about. It’s a fever dream he’ll soon forget, he tells himself. Phil only holds onto him tighter, and before he falls asleep Dan thinks maybe he’s wrong.

Morning comes too fast. Blurry and indistinct, and Dan barely registers that there’s somebody else beside him until there’s the gentle huffing of a person deep in slumber. He blinks once, twice. Pale arms hold Dan flush against his side. Dan doesn’t breathe. The blanket rustles a bit as Phil shifts, muttering something unintelligible in his ear, something low. They stay like that for just a small while, because Phil wakes when Dan moves, getting away fast to say _I need to pee_ , the poor excuse leaning too much into the shape of a lie.

The bathroom door shuts quietly behind him as he stands in front of the mirror. He’s still in yesterday’s clothes, dark jeans, dark shirt, blush on his cheeks, eyes wide. Shiny, even. It’s all too much, too much. Phil’s cologne lingers on his collar when they slept all wrapped around each other, flushing at the thought, wanting to do it again, and again, and again. This is where he starts to want more, to _be_ more. Doing it again implies that they are more and Dan knows that they’re not, that Phil doesn’t like him that way, not anymore at least, grew tired of loving him more than a friend before. Dan loves him, he knows, definitely, because any other verb would be inexplicable. It’s a love rooted in both the platonic kind and the other kind.

The kind that seizes Dan’s heart, freezes him in place, makes him bloody and bleeding with all the things he wants Phil to do to him. He doesn’t know how to love him differently. It’s been too long, too long, the dim lights casting long shadows on his face, and there’s a knock on the door.

“Dan?”

“Wait a minute.” He fumbles with the tap, hands shaky. Dan opens the door and Phil is all there, all those marble angles and edges. The shirt Phil wears is red, and he’s wearing a frown on his face, too. Neither of them speak, so Dan clears his throat, suddenly uncomfortable.

Phil steps forward, Dan steps back. A threshold separates them, the one he can’t cross. “I just — I should go,” Phil says, then.

It’s Dan that steps forward this time. He stands taller than him — he has been, for a while now, and Dan remembers when he wasn’t. When Phil seemed so much older, so much taller. It’s a memory he often revisits, forever engraved in his mind — eighteen and twenty-two — when Dan could take careless steps toward him. Now Phil is in front of him, hands curling at his sides, hair a mess, and maybe his t-shirt is starting to smell a bit like him too. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Phil stares at him for a moment too long, not moving until Dan looks away. It happens all too quickly. He stumbles back when Phil kisses him, and Dan holds onto his shirt too tight and kisses him back fiercely and the background is in the drowsiest yellows. He gasps softly, because Phil has a hand slid on the small of his back, drawing him in, and when he whines it comes out almost brokenly. _I want you_. Maybe it’s said in between the kisses pressed against his mouth, he wouldn’t know, words lost in the middle. All this longing drips too crudely for there to be any kind of clarity. Dan’s body burns, feverish, hands burning paths through the fabric of his shirt and it’s messy, eager, hopeful in its messy midst. It’s different to two-thousand and twelve. Dan realizes this now.

The door creaks, and something clatters hollowly against marble, and they both pull back, quickly, Phil stepping out of the bathroom, Dan standing where Phil left him. Quiet is all there is, and Dan feels his heartbeat shudder through his entire body. He can see the bottle of shampoo swept hastily onto the floor, leaking, and body wash beside it, and the toothbrush fallen from its cup. Footsteps go softer down the hallway not long after, and just like that — he’s gone.

 

 

 

It’s their last show, but they don’t talk on the ride to the venue, or on the ride back. During, though, they do, because they have a script and it’s become habit to slip into a role wrought to fit the characters they’re so accustomed to play. They smile and talk and laugh. It’s easier this way, Dan reckons, fitting themselves in these roles. Phil’s smile comes out easily. He sips on his drink, eyes averted, shoulders drawn together. Usually he’s able to put on a façade, but he can’t right now — not tonight. Phil’s always been better at that despite how often he gets uncomfortable, always better at hiding his emotions, always in control. Always, _always_.

Congratulations are thrown around the crowded hotel bar, sugary sweet. A headache looms over him like the pain between his ribs, choking the air out of his lungs when Phil glances at him briefly, his smile dropping. It leaves a bitter taste in Dan’s mouth. _Best friend._ It’s become armour, almost, that label. Protection from its harsh edges Dan’s afraid to breach again.

“Dan,” a voice says closely, and it’s carried by the cool air just outside. He knows who it is even before he turns, inflection distinct, familiar, the voice Dan willingly falls asleep and wakes up to. Phil raises his glass, Dan tips his forward. “Cheers.” Their glasses clink together. “For making it out alive for the second time.”

“Surprisingly, yeah?”

The silence gets nervous, so Dan sips on his drink. There’s the sound of more glasses meeting in the background, music playing dully, people talking. It’s hardly quiet out here, but Dan hears the way Phil breathes out, slowly, the way he normally does when there are words held in his mouth.

“About—”

“Can we just—,” Dan cuts him, and he flinches, “it was a fucking mess this morning, so can we just — not.” It floors him for a moment, backing away, when Phil looks at him with all that hurt about his features. “I’m going to bed soon and I think you should too. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He takes three, four steps backward, holding all the thorns in his throat. Phil doesn’t follow. No one is paying enough attention when Dan slips out, dropping the half-empty glass on a random counter, texting a hasty _really tired_ to Marianne. He’s only halfway to the elevator when a hand darts out to grab onto his arm, turning him around. Dan curses. The fingers that grip his elbow don’t loosen.

“You’re so goddamn stubborn, Daniel.”

Phil sounds breathless, red on his cheeks, immediately letting go as someone clears their throat, probably to make their presence known. Dan shrinks, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden despite himself. They both look at each other for a short while. Neither of them know what else to say. “Why are you here, Phil?” asks Dan, finally.

Before any of them can say anything else the elevator sounds, door sliding open. The ugly lights inside seem to make Phil look pale, _paler_ , much more sickly than Dan had noticed before. They stand side by side, until the doors slide open again, and when they both get to his room Phil stands outside the door, tapping his fingers against his leg, restless, while Dan is stood inside.

“Can I come in?”

They’ve been crossing too many lines lately.

“— Yes.”

Dan steps aside, Phil walks in, awkwardly. He loathes this, the unease settling in the spaces between them, too much dark water there. Too many steps backward. And above all, they’re friends — and it doesn’t hold lesser value to the other things he feels.

“We need to talk.”

Dan shrugs off his jacket, sitting across from him, Mumbai a backdrop beyond the window. “So talk.” A dozen different things flit across Phil’s face in an instant but none of them Dan can pick out. Phil smooths his hand across his knee, back and forth, while Dan watches. He eventually stops.

“You look pretty when you sleep,” Phil tells him, absentmindedly, meeting his eyes. “I forgot what it was like to see you like that.”

Dan scoffs, incredulous. “Like what?”

“— Like how I used to.”

The laugh that escapes through the crack between Dan’s lips is brittle, full of ice. “You can’t just say that—,” he stands, weirdly, body weak from trying to keep afloat, “stop doing that. Stop saying things, or telling me you want to hold me when we’re not like we were because I don’t know how to figure you out, Phil. I don’t know to figure you out when you hold me one moment and pretend nothing happened in the next.” Dan tries for anger but all that comes out is hurt, all that hurt. It was supposed to feel cathartic, but now he's not so sure. 

Phil takes slow steps forward. “Dan—”

“I need to know if you still bloody want me like before, Phil, or if you don’t.” He’s tired, so tired. The lights outside barely illuminate the room. It’s dark, so dark. Dan shuts his eyes and there are phosphenes, the many hues around them, silence tumultuous. Then, miserably, he adds: “It’s not fair.”

“I want you.” Phil stands in front of him. “Of course I do. I did before and I do now and I will always want you because you’re my best friend and you’re—,” Phil’s hands flutter anxiously near the sides of his face, “— you’re more. You can never be less than what you were.”

“That’s what we used to say back then and look how it all turned out.”

“I know, but I just.” Dan leans into his touch the slightest, weak at the knees, head hurting. “I forgot what it’s like to love you any less.”

Dan exhales, cynical. “Have you?”

“I had. I have. Present tense. _Always_.”

The two syllables don’t sound flimsy, oddly enough, belief in the space between the words.

So Dan says, “Okay.”

“Okay?" Phil echoes. 

He lets himself get tugged in.

“ _Please_ ,” Dan closes the distance, then, inch by inch, until their lips barely touch, “don’t go so far away this time. I can’t reach you there.”

 

 

 

(Phil didn’t mean to push him away, but he did, he does, very deliberately, ignoring the way Dan locks up under him at the slightest of touches. Phil never meant to push him away, so he holds Dan closer that night. Sometimes, Dan looks at him, curls a halo on the whiteness, and all his shades are pretty, too pretty, cheeks in pinks, eyes in the warmest chocolate, and staring at him feels like staring into an open flame. Full of wonder beneath all his layers. He’s twenty-two again and Dan is eighteen, tripping over his usually perfect prepositions, speaking too quickly, all the words coming out at once. Eventually all control is lost and they kiss. Dan is just there, and he’s otherworldly. Phil doesn’t remember when he fell in love, or how he did, whether it be on a platform or at a Starbucks in Manchester or through a pixelated screen, but he knows for sure, in moments like this, that it is now — in the present tense. “I missed you.” It’s said carefully, wary stains on cautious consonants. “I missed you too.” All there can be is truth. Dan’s eyes get smaller as he smiles. Phil wants to push him against the mattress, but he doesn’t. He’ll wait even though they know each other inside out; will learn him again, and again, and again. Learn him until there isn’t anything left for him to learn.)

 

 

 

“Hey,” Phil tugs at the collar of his shirt, clearing his throat. Dan feels himself blush, possibly at the way Phil seemingly stares, stares hard. “— Do you want to stay the night?”

“— Sure.”

Nothing else really needs to be said, Phil opens his door slightly wider, and he sits on the edge on the bed, and Dan follows him in recklessly, and Phil is full of nostalgia, the heavy past and the newer memories, and he tastes of toothpaste, warmth in his body and in his fingertips, smelling of the smell he always wears — the good smell, the smell of the body wash they share. Phil touches him tentatively, just barely, like when they first met, hands not knowing what to do, not quite unfamiliar but not quite acquainted either. They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and Phil’s focal point moves lower, and lower, and lower. Maybe Dan forgets how to breathe. And maybe, kisses become hands on ribs, and hands on ribs become more than that.

But they stop, because Dan goes sleepy from kissing, or the jetlag, exhausted from the months spent abroad, and Phil does, too. “I hate you.” And it’s true, mostly.

“I hate you, too.”

“Oi,” Dan mumbles more than says.

He reaches out to run his fingers along the sides of Phil’s face, moving closer, eyes fluttering shut as soon as his finger stops at his cheekbone. “Your hands are cold,” Phil breathes out, his voice low, shivering a little.

“I mean yeah,” Dan rolls his eyes. “It’s London.”

“— So are your feet,” Phil carries on, catching his wrist. He swallows, unable to tear his eyes from those blue, blue irises. _Thump_ , _thump_ , _thump_ , goes a failing heart. Dan curls his fingers, startles a little when the warmth of Phil’s breath flutters over his right fist, and he inhales sharply.

“Fucking hell, what are you—”

“Shut up.” But there’s laughter to his tone of voice; Dan snickers, even though adoration spills over the edges of his bones. “I’m trying to warm you up.”

“Well, sorry to break it to you, Lester, but it’s not working very well,” Dan teases, breathy, all the heat in his lungs. He raises his other hand to flick a piece of hair that’s fallen across Phil’s forehead away, failing to take in oxygen right, unable to stop a grin from stretching across his mouth. He’s warm inside and out, heat burning his cheeks.

Patches of moonlight colour Phil’s skin translucent, and Dan smiles, sleepy. _Nice_ — that’s how it feels. This thing they currently have. The ease that hasn’t been entirely present since two-thousand and twelve. Now their feelings, laid bare across the bedsheets, no longer feels suffocating or all-consuming. Dan tugs the covers over them both, and they smell like Phil, and Dan breathes it in, thoroughly, until sleep creeps up on his eyelids.

“Goodnight,” he mutters into the silence, and Phil’s smile pressed to his skin comes as an added bonus.

“I like you here like this.” Each word is punctuated with soft kisses behind Dan’s ear. It’s two, three seconds, fingers curling around his waist, pulling him in until Dan’s tucked under his chin, all their lines pressed to one another. He coils a bit when Phil’s lips are under his jaw where a bruise had formed nights before. Dan holds onto his wrists too urgently, maybe. “I like you,” Phil breathes.

A sureness blooms in his chest. He remembers this feeling, because it never really left.

“Cool.”

“ _Cool_?” Phil repeats, scoffing, but he’s smiling and Dan can feel it. “That’s it?”

“That’s all there is.” Dan angles his heads to kiss up his neck, grinning when Phil shivers. “Unless there’s more you want me to say.”

They settle for that because nothing else needs to be said. He’s been in love before — _loved_ , deeply, but this one has always been different, been more. Nothing has really changed since then. It’s always been a _good morning_ , a mug of coffee sat on the island before Phil wakes and sometimes, maybe, if Phil’s in a good mood he’d be willing to do his laundry, too, and sometimes they’ll fool around like teenagers but in his (“ _Our_ ,” Phil corrects, looking up from his phone) own apartment because they’re no longer teenagers. Nothing else has really changed since two-thousand and twelve, but they’ve grown somehow, and Dan finds that he likes this version of them the most.

Phil’s fingers run circles on his hips. “ _Phil_.”

The word comes out sort of breathy, a warning almost, because his hand dips lower, slid teasingly under Dan’s pyjama pants, resting there. Maybe they’ll make out for a bit, sleepy kisses with a promise like _tomorrow_ , or maybe they won’t. But Phil is patient while Dan is not so he squirms a little. His hand stays put. He keeps the whine in the back of his throat.

“Can I—?”

Whenever Phil looks at him, so openly like that, a rush of heat warms his chest, and Dan finds himself nodding. “Yes.”

 _Slow_ is the word of the night. They go slow, and Dan learns that patience is, indeed, a virtue. A virtue in which he does not possess. He holds onto Phil, a little desperate, a little needy, but mostly unmoving because he’s sleepy and it feels good, and Phil seems rather content with just kissing him, tasting the faint remnants of minty toothpaste, smiling against his mouth with the way Dan’s body behaves under him. “Is it okay?” Phil asks, even though he knows it is. _Cheeky fucker_.

All Dan can manage is a hiss, a soft _fuck_ just to stroke his ego, when Phil speeds up and Dan is, again, impatient, so he grinds up into his hand, sounds coming out in convoluted syllables, and Phil chuckles, says _slow down_ , but he doesn’t want to, breaths coming out sharper.

It’s sticky by the time they finish, and Phil passes him some tissues while Dan cleans himself up, complaining when Phil gets up in search of wet wipes, sheets now in ruins. “We could just change and wash the sheets tomorrow. Just a suggestion,” Dan’s saying, halfway to falling asleep, not knowing whether Phil heard or not. “I’m cold come back here.” He adds, then, when there’s an answering _you like being cold_ : “Please?”

Following that, though, there is a huff, an incredulous “You’re sleeping on _that_?” and Phil appears from the shadowy doorway.

“Tomorrow,” Dan argues. “Now come here.”

Phil shakes his head, conceding. “Demanding.” His presence beside Dan is warm, and Dan moves closer, cuddling him, clinging onto his frame. He smiles when their legs entwine clumsily at the foot of the bed. “Goodnight, Dan,” it’s said into his hair, a soft kiss pressed to his forehead. His toes curl, and he would like to think that he doesn’t go weak too easily, but it’s painfully far from the truth. “I missed you.”

“— Missed you too, Philly.”

Phil just smiles.

Falling into slumber, then, is fast and sure. Sleep conquers Phil first, and Dan finds himself staring up at Phil, his light eyelashes, breath fluttering against his cheek, and he thinks, not for the first time, that all his messy feelings are worth it — and that he’ll always keep trying. _Always_. Because in this awfully cataclysmic universe they are best friends and lovers, and being any less of that is a rift in this dimension.

**Author's Note:**

> hahaha the ooc. 
> 
> i'm @[velleitees](velleitees.tumblr.com) on tumblr. :)


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